I Once Was a Maid By Robert Burns

I Once Was a Maid

By Robert Burns

I once was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when, 

And still my delight is in proper young men; 

Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie, 

No wonder I'm fond of a sodger laddie, 

The first of my loves was a swaggering blade, 

To rattle the thundering drum was his trade; 

His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy, 

Transported I was with my sodger laddie. 

But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch; 

The sword I forsook for the sake of the church: 

He ventur'd the soul, and I risked the body, 

'Twas then I proved false to my sodger laddie. 

Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot, 

The regiment at large for a husband I got; 

From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready, 

I asked no more but a sodger laddie. 

But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in despair, 

Till I met old boy in a Cunningham fair, 

His rags regimental, they flutter'd so gaudy, 

My heart it rejoic'd at a sodger laddie. 

And now I have liv'd - I know not how long, 

And still I can join in a cup and a song; 

But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass steady, 

Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie.

History

The Laetoli Footprints were found #OnThisDay in 1978. The incredible discovery happened because team members were hurling elephant dung at each other. Australopithecines probably left these trace fossils behind 3.6 million years ago. 🏺🧪 pic.twitter.com/fKQiUvuLI6

— Paige Madison (@FossilHistory) September 15, 2026

 

An Insight

The irony is that many of the people warning loudest about human extinction, have between them, remarkably few children.

And the fertility crisis is not science fiction. Its a real existential threat that we face *today*https://t.co/64tJJ2VPX1

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) September 14, 2026

 

I see wonderful things

Jungle paradise 💦🌴pic.twitter.com/D1BBQ5hH9u

— Cosmic Gaia (@CosmicGaiaX) September 15, 2026

 

Offbeat Humor

Leo Tolstoy has the best diary entries ever.

Sept 19th, 1858.
“Decided that one must love and work, and that’s it.”
Sept 20th:
“Tired. Didn’t love and didn’t work.”

March 31st, 1852.
“Woke up at 6 o’clock, woke everyone up;
I did not get up and slept until 9.”

January 25th…

— Chris Williamson (@ChrisWillx) September 15, 2026

 

Data Talks

Pilots and flight attendants have the highest cancer risk of any occupation. One likely culprit: spending decades at cruising altitude, above much of the atmosphere that normally protects us from cosmic radiation. The study tracked 12.7 million deaths across 503 occupations from… pic.twitter.com/NgcawKxNfc

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) September 15, 2026

 

A Man Seated Reading at a Table in a Lofty Room, c. 1630 by Rembrandt

A Man Seated Reading at a Table in a Lofty Room, c. 1630 by a follower of Rembrandt (Netherlands, 1606-16669)

Click to enlarge.

How Long Do Wealth Shocks Persist? Less Than Three Generations in England, 1700–2026

From How Long Do Wealth Shocks Persist? Less Than Three Generations in England, 1700–2026 by Gregory Clark and Neil Cummins.  From the Abstract:

What happens across generations to wealth shocks? Do they endure and even magnify, or do they dissipate? By implication, how much modern wealth is attributable to events before 1900? This paper uses random shocks to family size in England before 1880 that created wealth shocks for the children to measure the persistence of wealth shocks. Fertility in England before 1880 was a biological lottery. For richer families, family size strongly influenced child wealth. This paper finds that such biology-induced wealth shocks had no impact on descendant wealth by three generations later. Since wealth itself persisted across more than five generations this implies that, in the long run, wealth mainly derives from sources other than inherited wealth. The observed link between nineteenth century and modern wealth does not lie in wealth transfers alone. Wealth persisted because of the familial inheritance of behaviors associated with wealth accumulation and retention.

Good discussion among commenters over at Marginal Revolution via Tyler Cowen.  

History

Europe’s witch hunts, 1450–1750. pic.twitter.com/INKEwrz3XP

— Vintage Maps (@vintagemapstore) September 15, 2026

 

An Insight

thinking about this banger from Naval pic.twitter.com/cZeM4OPXXC

— Jash Dholani (@oldbooksguy) September 11, 2026